


the august bedroom of tangled sheets

by venividivigor



Series: new moon [1]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, F/F, Fluff, Gay, Marriage, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Slice of Life, like really gay, more Wham! references than anticipated, slight nsfw
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-01
Updated: 2017-10-29
Packaged: 2018-10-13 11:25:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10512801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venividivigor/pseuds/venividivigor
Summary: "There is the Hudson, like the sea aflame. I would undress you in the summer heat, and laugh and dry your damp flesh if you came." - D.W.





	1. do you remember what i said?

It’s kind of funny, because Chloe never thought she’d be the U-Hauling type.

Three months into it and they’ve landed a shitty little place with shitty little windows and a shitty little bed that pulls out from the wall. The sounds from the bar below filter up through the floor late at night, Portland people clinking their glasses together and picking out songs to play, almost none of them from this century. The pipes click and there’s creaking in the hallways and it’s a fucking bitch to try and sleep with, but still. The shitpile has its moments.

Like the first night, after they’ve half-assed unpacking and Max looks beautiful on top of her. She’s scrolling through her phone, not noticing, or simply ignoring, Chloe’s hands as she smooths up the small of her back, rocking her slightly to get her attention.

It doesn’t work,

“Hey.”

“Hey,” Max says, and then after a second, “What?” with more humor than heat, not looking at her even after Chloe starts to take her shirt off.

“Nothing. Except I’m way more interesting than some stupid phone,” she says matter-of-factly. “Pay attention to me.”

At that, Max blinks down at her and grins, goofy before she leans in to give her a quick peck. “Don’t you think that should wait ‘til we’re done unpacking?”

“Nope,” Chloe loops a loose lock of hair back behind her ear. “I think that’s a terrible idea."

Max laughs and she just lights up, resolve limp as she lets herself be rolled over, back-to-bed. It had taken a while for this to feel normal, like there wasn’t a cosmic third wheel of apocalyptic proportions hanging above their heads, but now Chloe knows what it’s like to lay Mercy’s legs over her shoulders and drink, to let herself have this one, dear, precious thing because it’s _okay_ now.

Chloe’s learned that love isn't just a feeling, but a choice, and always, Chloe chooses her. Just like Max did. Like Max _does_ . _Loves_ her just like Max does.

An hour passes and Max’s fingers are brushing up Chloe’s bare back, the rest of her laid out, lithe and lazy like a cat on top of her. A really sweaty cat. Her head’s all dreamy and she’s buried in too much bliss to care about anything other than the sleep swimming beneath her eyelids or the sound of the heart that beats steadily, softly beneath her. That is, until Max’s fingers stop and Chloe grunts.

“You’re crushing me.” She squeaks.

“Mm,” Chloe keeps her eyes closed. “Romantically, I hope.”

Max snorts. “Sure.”

Chloe groans and rolls off, albeit reluctantly, with the help of a little shove, and asks, “Tired?”

From the looks of it, the answer is yes. Sleepy, sated, and no longer crushed, Max hugs the sheets tighter around herself. “Maybe.”

Chloe pushes her weight up onto her elbow, smiling at the way Max’s eyes crack open from beneath her moppy mess of sex-hair. “What’re you thinking about?”

“You,” Max blinks slowly before shutting her eyes again. “And how cheesy that line was. But mostly you, though.”

“Shut up. I’m smooth as hell,” Chloe says, smug and proud and _God_ , so disgustingly in love. She wiggles their fingers into a clasp and says, softer, “You think about me a lot?”

Max nods, staring at their fingers columned together. “Always.”

Chloe doesn’t say anything, just looks at her, light fanning over her flushed cheeks and skin, shadows delving and dipping into the shallow bends of her body. When Max looks back it feels like love, something Chloe had spent so long thinking she wasn’t worthy of, something she had spent so long thinking she couldn’t give back. But now things are different. They aren’t so black and white. They still fucking suck sometimes, yeah, different days colored in different shades of grey, but right now, all that matters is that Max is happy. Which is all she ever should be.

“This is it.” Chloe says.

Max nuzzles her way under Chloe’s arm and onto her chest. “This is what?”

“This is what I meant to give you,” Chloe’s fingers start to scratch, lightly, almost distractedly at the nape of her neck the way she likes. “I know I fuck up a lot, but I love you.”

She doesn’t get an immediate response- she’s beginning to wonder if she’s going to get one at all- but then Max mumbles, quietly before falling asleep, “You’re a good fucking person, Chloe Price.”

The next morning they call Joyce over breakfast, being sure not to mention the janky door lock or the amount of crappy food and boxed wine they’ve been consuming. She tells them that she’s proud of them and that she hopes they’re safe and that David wishes them well. When they hang up Chloe thinks she might’ve heard her start to cry. Then they call Max’s parents and they say the same sort of stuff, only with more of the typical, fretful Caulfield questioning that Max has learned to expertly defuse.

Later, they’re picking pictures out of a shoebox to put on the wall opposite of their bed. Even on the tips of her toes Max is struggling, clearly, to tack them as high as all five feet, three inches of her will allow.

“Jesus,” Chloe tries not to laugh after she’s lost her balance once, twice, three times. “Just let me.”

In fifteen minutes they’ve got a pretty impressive display put up, the wall covered ceiling to floor of photos of them on the road and in bed and of Chloe’s syrup-drawings of dicks on diner dishes. It’s kind of perfect.

They spend the first few months studying to get their GEDs, simultaneously juggling part-time jobs and sleep and trashy TV-show marathons. They mooch off their neighbors’ wifi so that they can mooch off Max’s parents’ Netflix account while gorging themselves on instant ramen and Four Loko. Max vacuums, sometimes. Chloe does the dishes, sometimes, once they get their first real set of grown-up plates. They’re like adults, sort of.

Max has officially retired from her position as time warrior and moved on to part-time waitress, part-time freelance photographer, full-time photojournalist hopeful. For a while it seemed like she’d never get back into it, but she’s just so in her element with a camera, like art making art, looking at the world through one great big kaleidoscope.

Meanwhile, Chloe works part-time mopping up at the bar downstairs and part-time scanning books at the library around the block. The bar’s pretty cool- the owner sneaks them liquor sometimes and joins Chloe on her smoke breaks around the back. The library, surprisingly, she doesn’t hate. Just the section that’s filled with those terrible drug-store romance novels that her mom used to buy in bulk.

They’re both busy as hell, and some days it actually _feels_ like hell, the both of them pulling doubles on top of doubles. On top of doubles. They’re pretty much living paycheck to paycheck, counting on Max’s parents to pull through every once in awhile when they come up short. They’re not rolling in money by any means, but it’s enough. It’s enough. With Max, there’d always be enough. She makes it suck less.

They still argue, though. Mostly it’s over stupid things and it’s over with quick, like when Chloe forgets to do the laundry or when Max leaves her keys in the lock. But other times it’s dark and heavy and _real_ , like when Chloe drinks too much or when Max starts to go days without eating again or when they both refuse to tell each other it feels like the world is ending inside of them, sick-stomach-ache-deep. But then Max uses that voice that can convince anyone and everyone that everything’s okay or Chloe makes a stupid joke and they laugh and then eventually, they work _through_ shit. Another thing Chloe never thought she would’ve been able to do.

A lot of their dates include late-night trips to the grocery store or eating Pop-Tarts by candlelight because the building’s power has gone out. Max never complains, though, instead she says she’d take Pop-Tarts with Chloe over fancy-pants dinners with anybody else any day. She says this is what she wants and what she loves most because she gets to be _her_ girl and that’s all she could ever ask for. Sometimes Chloe catches it playing over and over again in her head, _her girl, her girl, her girl_.

She’s twenty years old now. She’s alive. Max is back in her life, for good this time, even if Chloe’s mind often tells her differently. Sometimes she goes weeks without having a Dad breakdown or a Rachel breakdown or an all-of-Arcadia-Bay breakdown. Sometimes she doesn’t. But Max is always there for Chloe and Chloe is always there for Max. Chloe doesn’t touch her when she doesn’t want to be touched, remembers that she’s sensitive about her wrists and her neck and that she likes to have control. They learn to take care of each other, to take care of themselves.

She’s getting better with this woman who can, who has, and says she would again tear the world apart for her. The universe had spun a story for them and they followed it, but now it’s like they’re living in the really good sequel that almost never happens. And sure, sitting on a dingy couch and watching Food Network on Friday nights isn’t exactly what she imagined doing at this age, but she doesn’t really want anything else. She’d spent all of her life searching for her next adventure, but had been too much of a dumbass to know that it had been standing, right there next to her the entire time.


	2. the answer is obvious

Chloe drops her phone on her face when Max opens the door.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” Ow. “You look like shit.”

She kind of does. In an, _I just spent one half of the day serving coffee and the other trying to convince a chick with an undercut that no, we don’t have anything gluten-free_ , kind of way.

“Thanks,” Max grins. “Did you pick up the mail this morning?”

“On the counter,” Chloe watches as she walks to the kitchen, ignoring the woozy head rush she gets when she sits up. “You okay?”

“I’m alright,” she nods, filing through the stack of envelopes. Mostly bills, Chloe figures, because that’s all they ever get, but then Max’s brow furrows with an, “Oh.”

“Oh, what?”

“Dana’s wedding invitation.”

Max flops down on the bed with her head in her lap, which prompts Chloe’s fingers to immediately start petting through her hair. It’s all soft and shampoo-ey and sweet.

“She’s getting married?”

“Yeah,” Max turns the card over in her hands. “Trevor proposed like, last June-ish, remember?”

“Oh,” Chloe remembers. Last June-ish. “Go, Trev. When is it?”

“November 30th,” then, card aside, she reaches behind her for one of Chloe’s hands and asks, “Have you eaten yet?”

“Nah,” Chloe presses a kiss to her crown. “I was waiting for you to get home. You wanna get something?”

She tilts her head back, looks up at her through her bangs. They’re getting long again. “Could we?”

“Sure. As long as you promise we won’t stop by that place with the booger tea.”

Max blinks. “Boba.”

“..Same thing?”

“Whatever. I promise,” she rolls her eyes, the smile that’s paired with it showing that it’s more out of affection than anything else. “Don’t forget your jacket.”

They go to the little Mexican place three blocks from the apartment. Max narrowly avoids stepping in a rain puddle on the walk there, but it ends up not mattering because Chloe just jumps in it anyway. She holds the door open for her when she goes in, but not without slapping her ass, too, which earns her a look.

Max holds her hand the whole time they wait in line just because she can. And she does it on the way back, even when their hands get sweaty and Chloe keeps sticking her mitts in the paper bag to inhale half of the nachos.

When they get home, Chloe curls up on the arm of the couch like a gargoyle with a rice bowl and asks, “Did work suck?”

“Was as good as it can get when you’re waiting tables for eight hours,” Max stretches her arms above her head, voice muffled as she changes into a sweatshirt. “There was a minor grill fire and that guy came in again to try and get my number.”

“Hawaiian Shirts or Nose Ring?”

“Hawaiian Shirts. Nose Ring finally got the hint.”

“And you told him to-”

“Have a nice day?” she sits across from her, beaming. “I sure did.”

“I was gonna say ‘fuck off,’ but yours works too,” she shakes her head in mock disappointment. “You're too nice. Have you learned nothing from me?”

“I’m nice because I don’t wanna get fired,” She reaches blindly for a burrito. “And yeah, he’s annoying. But he’s also not hurting anyone.”

Chloe’s smile is skeptical. “Okay.” She nods, slow.

“Okay, what?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s _so_ not nothing,” Max bumps Chloe’s knee with her foot. “What?”

“Nothing!” she says, though her laugh indicates otherwise. “Just.. sounds like someone’s a good tipper, is all.”

“Hey. You wouldn’t complain either, if you got tipped in twenties.”

They eat and flip through the TV even though there’s nothing on. Chloe smokes and eats some more. Then they make out on the couch for a little while, where Max unbuttons her shirt and runs her fingers over her ribs. It’s nice, this, the nights where she comes home smelling like coffee and cotton and everything around Chloe suddenly feels sort of pleasantly fuzzy and soft-edged and warm. Like everything's okay and it _has_ been and it _will_ be.

“I know I’m kind of high right now-” she pauses, Max laughs- “but you make me real happy.”

She looks down and Max’s chin is resting in the center of her chest, her head leaning to the side. “I do?”

Max is really pretty and she’s really comfy and her eyes, which are like, offensively blue, are looking at her, _only_ at her, into her, like she’s the best damn thing on the planet. It’s that, combined with the dreamy, faded feeling overflowing all of her senses that makes Chloe kind of forget to answer for a second before she nods, closes her eyes and says, “You do.”

“Well, good. Because you make me real happy, too.”

“I do?” She raises her eyebrows but keeps her eyes closed, fascinated by even the concept.

“Mhm,” Max presses a kiss to her stomach and says, softly, “You do.”

That's what makes Chloe kiss her to sleep.

Then she jolts awake at four in the morning from a nightmare.

It’s unexpected, but it happens like that sometimes. Most of the time, actually. Completely out of the butt-fuck blue. And now that Chloe thinks about it, they could really use a day’s notice or whatever, so that they can find the time to roll out the shit-brown carpet and properly prepare for it to make its grand entrance and dump a hot load all over their lives.

She’s turned in on herself, tiny and tight and trembling dreadfully down to the bones. Chloe’s got her chin on top of her head, holding her, chest caving in not under the weight of her body, but the weight of her words, when she whispers, watery, “I don’t want this anymore.”

And as much as Chloe wants to cry for her, with her, she manages to suck it the fuck up, to cradle her closer and say, “I know, baby.”

She's so small. Chloe can't focus on anything other than the fact that Max is so small and she’s so tired and she’s had so many big, scary, bad things happen to her, all because of Chloe. She _knows_ this, even if it is the ass crack of dawn. But she also knows, more than anything else, that Max needs her right now, and _God damn it_ , she can’t afford to be a dumbass right now, and if she doesn’t stop thinking about it, like,  _right now_ , she’s going to go on a slick downwards spiral and then they’re _both_ going to be freaking the fuck out instead of sleeping like humans are supposed to be at this ungodly hell-hour.

For once, her mouth’s habit of moving faster than her mind is a good thing when she asks, “You okay?”

It takes Max a second to answer, but she nods and says, “Yeah.” only it’s not in a way that people sound like when they’re okay. It’s too shaky, small in her throat.

Chloe nudges her, though gentle. “You sure?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Are you bullshitting me?”

Max sniffs. “A little bit.”

“Alright,” Chloe fingers through the frayed edge of the blanket. “I guess it’d be sorta stupid if I asked you if you wanted to talk about it, huh?”

“Sorta,” Max mumbles, and then softer, “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It’s okay,” she presses a kiss to her temple, noticing, and then lifting, Max’s nails from where they’re dug in at her wrists, thin like lemon stems. “ _That_ isn’t, though. Maybe don’t do that.”

“Oh,” She says, sounding as if she hadn’t noticed she was doing it in the first place. “Sorry.”

Chloe whispers, _Don’t be sorry, stupid,_ into her hair, and it takes them a minute, but it’s quiet again, and then Chloe doesn’t know anything else other than the fact that when she kisses her it tastes like sunshine and that Max is like if everything good in the world had been wrapped up into one itty-bitty little person. Everything good, given to Chloe to keep, and keep safe, given to Chloe to watch go into the world on her own, given to Chloe to be able to watch her come back.

Chloe kisses her to sleep again and Max kisses her awake and it’s okay in the morning. Chloe snores and Max kicks her in the shin. They both eat breakfast and they both laugh into their pillows and it’s okay. She’s okay.  
  
They’re okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i kinda just wanted to write some normal-ish nothingness fr them bcs that's somethin we didnt rlly... get to relish in. god knows these poor babies deserve it. also a hint of a vague plot is happening, hell yea. thank u fr reading btw! comments/kudos/all that good stuff is appreciated


	3. limes & roses blowing in the car window

Max isn’t the best in heels. Especially when she’s tipsy. But it’s kind of endearing, really, how she’s falling all over herself, still as clumsy at twenty as she was when she was twelve.

Still so clumsy, in fact, that Chloe has to guide her the whole way out of the reception hall. She trips on the carpet, on her own feet, on the way out the door, giggling and gripping onto the sides of Chloe’s arms for leverage as she gives an, “Oopsie daisy.”

She manages to ease Max back upright, this time with minimal wobbling. Although, it’s a little hard not to laugh, because she bears an impressive resemblance to Bambi on ice. Or maybe a rubber chicken.

“You good?”

“Mhm,” Max nods, head bobbing. “Uh-huh.”

And then she straightens up like she’s about to walk ahead, but before she can get too far, Chloe puts a hand on her shoulder and stops her with a gentle, “Hold on.”

“Huhm?” she turns, and then she gets it, once a suit jacket is draped over her shoulders. “Oh. You’re cold.. Wh’aren’t you?”

Yeah, actually. She kind of is. But she doesn’t say so, just shakes her head, puts one hand in Max’s and the other in her pocket. “I’ll be alright. You keep it.”

She kisses her cheek with an, “Okie doke,” and there’s probably some lipstick left over, but that’s okay.

So far, Chloe’s been to three weddings in all twenty-one years of her life, and two out of the three of them have had a batting average of sucking balls. She was thirteen at the first, her older cousin’s, at which she’d sat with her legs spread just to spite the fact that she’d been forced into a dress. The second was at sixteen, Joyce and David’s, when she’d cut her hair short a week prior just to piss them off. And then the third was just ten minutes ago, which was different, where she had no point to prove.

Ten minutes ago was Dana Ward’s wedding, which was everything someone would expect Dana Ward’s wedding to be like, all big and shiny and Dana-esque. The ceremony itself was quiet, though, and mushy, and if Chloe wasn’t in the same boat as Trevor, she’d’ve poked fun at him for being such a bastard, so obviously gooey-eyed and in love the whole time he was up there. It was kind of disgusting, actually.

What’s even more disgusting is how pretty it is outside, the sky shaded in that soft-edged sort of orange it gets when it snows. There’s a fine film of flakes beneath their feet and it’s quiet and it’s hardly ever like this in the city, when everything finally sits still, this one little piece of the world cut and removed so intimately from the rest of reality.

They cross a car-less street, then another, then another, and the whole time Chloe is looking at her, surrounded by sprays of white with her hair shaken wild by winter wind. She’s wearing the necklace that Joyce had given her for her birthday two months ago, the chain thin and gold and trailing down her chest, dangling with a tiny diamond at the end. Chloe had fastened it for her before they left the apartment, able to catch a quick glimpse of the doe-print, inked delicately behind the shell of her ear, when she lifted her hair for her to close the clasp.

“I _see_ you,” Max says, blue peeking out from the corner of her eye. “ _Lookin_ ’ at me like a crazy person. What?”

“Nothing,” only it’s not nothing, because she stops walking and squeezes her hand. “C’mere.”

“Why?”

“Just c’mere.”

She does. Her fingers lace at the back of Chloe’s neck while Chloe’s lace at her waist, the cold in her skin seizing at Max’s constant warmth. She kisses her cheek, her forehead, and in return, Max’s nose scrunches, leaning up on her toes for an additional peck.

“Hey, peanut.”

“Hi, pretty.”

Chloe smiles, unable to do anything else but admire her adorable, dopey, drunk girlfriend. “You think I’m pretty?”

“Mmhm,” her voice is muffled as she hides half her face in her shirt. “Like, the prettiest.”

And then it’s just that, two girls stepping in circles in the middle of a snow-covered street like they’re in some cliché as _fuck_ story that no one else gets to read. It all feels so out of character for the universe to let her have this, no underlying secrets or snags or special conditions. There’s no perpetual metaphorical game of Russian Roulette to win, and there’s no strings attached- save for the red one tied at tips of their fingers- so she accepts it. There’s no reason not to.

This wasn’t given to her. It wasn’t something she was owed or something she earned, either. It just happened. She fell in love with a girl, a girl fell in love back, and that was that.

It’s the swell of Max’s smile against her, coupled with the honeyed tone of her voice as she asks, “We dancing?” that lifts her out of her fog.

“Sure,” Chloe shrugs. “I’d call this dancing.”

“Oh,” then there’s a quick beat, a draw of breath like she’s realized something. “But we’re bad dancers.”

“That’s okay.”

Like this, she’s starting to feel that same sort of blanketing calm she gets when she can’t sleep and she rolls closer to Max in the middle of the night. Sometimes it’s because her brain won’t shut off or because of the bar downstairs or because the lights from the street are glaring in through their windows. Sometimes it’s because of their neighbors, and sometimes it’s for no reason at all. But then she looks at the left side of the mattress, Max’s side, always Max’s side, and remembers that she’s warm, and she’s whole, and she’s breathing and in _their_ bed because she chose to be there.

“We’re gonna get run over.”

The declaration is abrupt, and filled with such drunken conviction that it makes Chloe smirk, snort under her breath. “We’re not gonna get run over.”

“Yer’gonna be real sorry when we get run over.”

They don’t get run over.

They get a cab instead. She holds the door open for Max first, making sure that she doesn’t fall her way into the seat. Then Chloe follows after, giving the guy their address as Max rests her head on her chest, yawning and making some comment about how soft Chloe’s boobs are. And after that it’s quiet for a while, her fingers gliding up, down the smooth, white slope of Max’s neck, following to flutter through the ends of her hair as the both of them settle into the comfortable hush that’s fallen over the car. Max’s breathing is steady, sweet, and she thinks she might have fallen asleep until she hears a, “Honey.”

“Mm?” She looks down, finding tiny fingers fiddling with the knot of her tie as Max blinks back up.

“You’re pretty,” she says, even though she just said it a little bit ago. “You’re so pretty, I wanna kiss you.”

Chloe grins. “I’d be okay with you kissing me.”

So she does. And it’s a little bit messy and a little bit handsy and a little bit too much for the back of a taxi, but she can’t really bring herself to care, even if the cabbie _is_ giving them the stink-eye.

Eventually Max pulls away and slouches against her, stretching an arm over her middle and sing-song sighing out, “You’re about to get _so_ lucky,” like it’s a fact.  
  
Chloe just laughs, shakes her head and starts to think that, _yeah, maybe weddings aren’t so bad._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just love love, man. n i'm sorry i didn't get this up sooner, but thank u fr reading anyways ! comments/kudos/blah blah blah are all super appreciated !


	4. white morning/black treacle

It’s probably not the best way to keep her from being late.

Yes, Chloe knows that Max has work at nine. Yes, Chloe knows that she can’t miss it. _Yes_ , Chloe knows that she said she has to have a little extra time to do _something_ , _something_ , _yadda-yadda-yadda_ \- but Chloe’s already awake. And it’s still pretty early.

And she has no impulse control.

Shaking her doesn’t work. Shaking her harder doesn’t, either, because despite how small she is, Max sleeps like a fucking rock. So Chloe sits on top her, lovingly, and only slightly cutting off her air supply as she leans down into her ear and whispers:

“Max.”

There’s a second of silence, Chloe’s expectance, and then a sigh.

When she looks down she finds her eyebrows drawn together, almost like she’s offended, mouth barely moving as she mumbles, “Max is sleeping.”

“So you _were_ awake,” she says, way more chipper than any other regular human being should be at this hour. “Turn over.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“C’mon.”

“Nope.”

“C’mon.”

“Nah.”

So she settles on a softer approach, using her fingers to comb Max’s bed-head behind her ears, also opting to ignore her glare. “ _Please_?”

She does, finally, pushing herself up on her elbows. But she doesn’t do it without groaning. Loudly. “You make my life so hard.”

“Attagirl.” Chloe just guides her flat onto her back, kissing her shoulder, collarbone, the center of her chest on her way down.

“ _Oh_ , no,” She tries to scold her but Chloe can hear the laugh swelling in her throat. “No, no, no. You’re gonna make me late, I have to-”

“I _think_ they’ll understand.”

For a second it’s just them staring at each other until Max’s teeth show in a grin, her head falling back in defeat. But, really, she doesn’t seem all that upset.

“Jesus Christ, Chloe.” she lifts her hips, laughs, and Chloe smiles at the way her stomach moves against her mouth. “You’re so damn difficult to refuse.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Chloe breathes, already wetting her fingers against her tongue.

Chloe knows what to do, by now.  On mornings like this it’s all long and lazy and languid: nails rasping up her thighs, tongue sliding down the hollow space between her ribs. Like this, all of Chloe’s fears of just being the asshole chick that took her life, and to top it off, her virginity, in some crap-ass motel room in the middle of Buttfuck, Nowhere, are all miles away, melted away, now. Max’s bitten back swears and sighs are there to tell her that, _yes, stupid, you’re welcome here_.

“Chloe-”

“Yeah.” She doesn’t even bother looking up.

“You’re fucking killing me.”

And that’s just perfect.

Max comes with a quiet noise, cute and soft and with a little laugh, like she always does. It takes her a second but Chloe slows and moves close, face-in-neck sort of close, lips brushing against a temple when Max bats softly at her wrist.

"Too much?"

She nods, still catching her breath, and gives an affirmative, "Mhm."

“Okay.”

Chloe backs off, waits a second, watches. She kisses her knee and lets her hand wrap around her ankle, nail pressing gently into the skin while her thumb sweeps, just once, over jutting bone. Max sighs, and she notices, not for the first time, how the light falls over her like a sunburn, her entire body flushed tender with color.

Chloe Price from a few years ago would’ve laughed, or cried, maybe, if someone had told her that someday, this would be her reality. But here she is, and here _she_ is, lovely and loose-haired and laid out, lazed out on their bed where they’ve done this a thousand times over, her eyes glossy with post-orgasm bliss.

Her life is so fucking weird.

She closes Max’s thighs for her and puts her on her side, letting their legs wind around each other even if Max’s feet are subhumanly cold. Below her she’s a little ball of leftover energy, breath slowing but still heavy, thickly-hot, cheeks and ears gone an achy sort of red.

“God damn, I’m good.”

Her laugh is half-absorbed by the mattress. “And humble.”

And then she smiles, slight, sleep still soft on her lips. There’s a blade of sunshine cutting across her cheek and gold shivering all over her skin, light caped over the crest of her shoulder, bright, because Max is overwhelmingly bright. She’s tucked herself up underneath Chloe’s chin, cupping it like she belongs there.

She totally does.

In between an inhale and an exhale, a tap of her thumb on Chloe’s cheek, she sighs, says, “I should get up.”

“Man, do you have bad ideas.”

“C’mon, I gotta take a shower.”

“Too bad, dude.” Chloe fully resorts to dickdom, rolling over on top of her with her limbs completely limp. “You’re stuck like this forever.”

“Shit, _so_ not fair. You’re freakishly heavy.” She tries to push her off, then fails, then tries again, then fails again, then whines, “Oh my _God_ , you’re the worst.”

“Hey, thanks, schnookums.”

Max’s eyes narrow, palm moving to pat the side of Chloe’s face. “Gross.”

“Yeah.” she deflates, kissing her, quick. “Go, if you’re so eager.”

Max pushes her off, gets up, morning glowing and humming around her like a full-bodied halo. “I’ll make it up to you.”

She’s more sure in her movements, now. More fluid in the way that the angles and curves of her body flow, neatly, into one another. And her hair’s gotten a little bit lighter, a little bit longer, a stark contrast to the thin sheet of black she’d had on her head when they were kids. But it’s still messy, like it always has been in the mornings, still curly at the nape of her neck when she puts it up.

And it’s so weird seeing her like this, because she remembers her, freshly eighteen and standing, skinny, soaked with chlorine in the middle of a sunwashed bedroom. But now she’s an _adult_ , doing _adult-y_ things like going to grown-up jobs, picking out shit to wear for grown-up jobs- and in a strange sort of way it makes sense, because despite the fact that Chloe’s older, she’s always felt like she’s been a little bit behind her when it came to maturing.

Because, Jesus Christ, Chloe wasn’t kidding when she’d called her a force of nature. Max had held the whole world, so simple, like it was a pebble in her palm, and learned to skip it across time, taught it to skip right back- but everything she does now is because she made a choice to, one that she won’t go back on. One she’s sure of. Although she’s still shy, soft-spoken, but a little bit less so. She doesn’t second-guess herself. As much.

“Wait a sec-” It’s the sound of the dresser closing, Max’s feet starting to pad away that brings Chloe’s brain to a halt, her eyes to the dress in her hands. “You’re not even gonna consider my _favorite_?”

“Well, I thought about it.” she laughs a little, rocking back and forth on her heels for a second. “But I figured it was a little slutty for my very _first_ day?”

“Okay?” Chloe lets her head hang off the foot of the bed. “I don’t see the issue, here.”

“Not exactly aiming for the whole cocktail waitress look, if you can believe it.” her weight shifts. “‘N besides, don’t you know my days in foodservice are over?”

“That’s too bad.” Chloe’s lip pops out in a pout. “I liked that little uniform.”

“Jesus, put on a shirt.” She grins and ruffles Chloe’s hair, now shaggy, stripped back to her naked strawberry blonde. “Pig.”

“Not my fault you got the ass of an angel.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“What? You know I’m an ass man.”

“You’re about to go on my list!” She shouts from the bathroom.

Chloe rolls over onto her back, stretching her arms out with her brow pinched and asks, “You have a list?” but the only thing she gets in response is the shower squeaking to life.

So she goes downstairs to get the mail in a pair of sweatpants and the closest shirt she can find, which just so _happens_ to be Max’s little pink sweater. _God_. Whatever. She doesn’t care, even if she does get a few weird looks on the way down. She’s past trying to prove how big and bad she is.

Then Chloe flops back down on the bed with a cigarette, able to hear Max drop something on the floor along with the following, “ _Fuck_.” And she just stares at the ceiling for a second, smoke blowing out in plumes through a smile that she doesn’t remember spreading.

Food gets made, because she thinks that, just maybe, a single cigarette isn’t the most fulfilling breakfast known to man. And because Max would just eat a cold slice of pizza or a couple handfuls of dry cereal if she didn’t. So she makes coffee, sets it out on the counter to wait for her, black, because she’s weird that way, alongside her toast with the avocado that she likes for some reason, ‘cause she’s weird that way, too.

“Huh,” Max emerges, dropping her balled-up laundry in the basket and pointing to pink wool. “That’s a new look for you.”

“So you like it?”

“Definitely.”

They eat and talk and talk and eat, but the whole time Max is swaying her foot back and forth, eyes darting from place to place, staring at the floor like she’ll find a way to avoid going in the weave of the carpet. Chloe knows that her mind’s moving a million miles a minute. Max may have grown a spine, but she has her moments.

“You’re nervous.” Chloe says. She doesn’t look up from her plate, instead just reaches out for her with her free hand.

“A little.” Max immediately takes it.

Chloe knows that her regular spiel doesn’t always cut it, so she just lifts her fist and kisses her little finger, her wrist, and says, “You’re you. You’re gonna do great, okay? Call me if you need to.”

“Okay.” she nods, eyes flicking over to the clock. “Okay, I really gotta go.”

Chloe maneuvers her way through knotted sheets and grabs for her waist when she stands, pulling her back so she can’t leave. “Mm, no.”

Max twists around, eyebrow lifted, and repeats, dangerously, though still through a smile, “No?”

“Yeah."

She starts tugging away again. “Yeah?”

“ _No_.” Chloe pulls her back.

"C'mon, Chlo, shove off." she giggles, standing above her, starting to scratch faintly at Chloe’s scalp. "What's up with you, huh?"

A lot of things, all of which she’s not going to say. Partly because it's embarrassing and partly because it’s not the right time and partly because she knows that if she tried, she’d ruin the moment, but fuck. Chloe loves this girl.

"Nothin.'” she shakes her head, shrugs and slumps back into her. “Just love you 's'all."

Max beams, kisses the arch of her brow just light enough to be felt. “Yeah?”

She smushes her face into her stomach because she can’t really look at her anymore, only it’s just as soft and just as warm and it kind of makes Chloe want to scream. "I guess."

“You guess?"

“Mhm.” She mumbles.

“Well, in that case.” Max lifts her head for her, gliding her hands over her shoulders. “I guess I love you too.”

Then she holds her face in her hands, and it’s short but it _feels_ endless when she kisses her goodbye, thumbs sweeping over Chloe’s cheeks the way they do when she cries or when she’s tired or when she’s doing what she’s doing now, adoring, adoring, all the love in the world surfaced to the skin of this one, tiny, precious person. If it’s possible, Chloe thinks she loves her even more than she did just a second ago.

Max feathers through her hair one last time, but before she can leave, Chloe reaches up and strokes, barely, just for a second, over the empty space on her finger where a ring should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m back! & god, sorry this took so long- i’m dealing w/an unexpected move atm soooo please forgive me <3 i hope this was worth the wait though ! comments/kudos/the works are all super appreciated, thanks fr reading ! :*


	5. a greater beauty

 

Chloe goes into it ass-first.

Not that she hasn’t been thinking about it- in fact, she’s been thinking about it more than she’s been thinking about anything else for the past year. It’s kind of hard not to, what with the damn thing camping around the different corners of their place, a constant reminder, just.. sitting there. Waiting.

It’d made its way into her pocket on a few dates here and there- the real  _grown-up_ kind where they aren’t just spending the night eating frosting out of a can and watching as much of the  _Lord of the Rings_ movies they can stomach- only to be shoved back into hiding at the top of the fridge at the end of the night. She was always sure to put it far back enough where Max is too short to reach.

It seems that whenever Chloe tries to flesh out a plan for it, the whole thing gets shot to shit, falls short before she can even begin. So, her solution? No plan. Good plan. The best plan she’s got.

She’s  _also_ got a personal vendetta against the little shit for it silently taunting her, a looping, glaring message of  _YOU’RE PUTTING IT OFF OUT OF FEAR EVERYWHERE YOU GO._

With the exception of the cheese aisle, of course.

They’re both still in their work clothes, being the exact kind of assholes that they used to hate who show up right before closing. Chloe keeps trying to slam-dunk things into the cart while Max keeps trying to keep her restrained, stopping her from barely making baskets with six-packs of spray cheese because,  _Chloe, that’s just a cardiovascular disease waiting to happen_ , which, whatever. She thinks Max just wanted an excuse to use a big word.

Chloe runs her thumb absentmindedly along the length of the velvet box tucked in her coat, watching her girlfriend, who’s currently struggling to reach the top of the shelf, with raised brow. Max has made it clear that she believes she’s  _perfectly capable_ and that she’s  _got it this time_ , even if her arm is stuck waving helplessly in the air.

“..Chloe.”

“Yeah.”

“..Could you-”

“Yeah,” Her hand comes out of her pocket to cover the top of Max’s head, nudging her away. “Which one?”

“Far left.”

“This one?”

“Other left.” She looks up in the middle of straightening out her bangs, nose scrunched with her lips lifted into a smile.

“This one?”

“No, you ass.” she laughs. “Come on.”

Chloe sticks her tongue out between her teeth, is about to turn on her heel to toss it into the basket when she hears:

“You dropped someth-  _Oh!_ ”

And then her head turns, and then she sees it fall to the ground, and then she wants to dropkick herself in the ass.

Max is just standing there, wide-eyed. Her hand is covering up her mouth, frozen, gaze flitting from floor to face, back and forth in silence.

And Chloe doesn’t exactly know how to read that.

Especially not over the alarm bells of  _you’re a dumbass, you’re a dumbass,_   _you fucked up, you’re a fuck-up,_  going off in her head- is she just shocked? Or is she disappointed? Is she going to turn around and walk out right there on the spot?

She stares at it for a second where it sits on linoleum, lips pressing themselves into a thin line. She can feel her heart pounding, halfway up her throat as she bends to pick it up from the very same place her gut’s plunged to, treading with as much care and hope and  _fear_ as is humanly possible. Because, here she is, like an idiot, nervous, on one knee, completely out of breath-  _kind of_ starting to debate the possible outcomes of what would happen if she were to just shove it back into her pocket, pretend that it never happened and show herself out the door.

There isn’t too much time for her to really think about it, though, because Max points at it and asks, “Well, are you gonna?”

So her decision’s pretty much made- she’s already down here, after all, where the center of gravity has shifted, where the world’s rotated before her eyes. Where this little part of it doesn’t feel so heavy. It’s yet another answer that’s come to her when she stopped looking, instead opted to wait for the walls to recede rather than try to wrecking-ball her way through them.

She’s pictured this a trillion times. She’s gone through the motions in her head a trillion more. She’s got this.

“Max-”  _Take a breath, steady yourself-_ “Fuck.”

Alright. Not the best start. But Max just laughs, breathy, a little flushed, beautiful, looking more gorgeous than is probably fair even under the bad fluorescent lighting. “Yeah?”

She tries, a few times, dumbly, to shape the words she wants to get out, though is dragged down by this sort of precious, adolescent hesitation. All of a sudden she becomes intensely jealous of Max’s ability to say so much so effortlessly- the way she can pack a punch into so few words, a photograph, a touch, a look. She wishes this were that simple.

It’s all she can manage to get out a lame, “So, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

It’s softer, this time, watery in the way Max says, “Yeah.” Chloe really hopes that she doesn’t cry. If Max cries, she’s going to cry.

“Okay,” she starts again, swiping her hand on her knee. “Let me preface this by saying that I have no idea what I’m doing. And by apologizing in advance for any stupid shit I’ll probably say, like- you know I’m the worst at this stuff, but for you, I at least wanna try.”

She doesn’t answer that, just lowers her hands, just nods and keeps doing that  _thing_ , looking down at her like she’s the most special thing in the universe.

Jesus.

How the hell is she supposed to say this to her?

“So,” another brief pause, a glance at the tiles lining the ceiling. “I know we’ve already sort of agreed that this is a ‘forever’ kind of deal, but this is what normal people do, so I figured, fuck it.”

_Okay, cool, try not to set a new world record for ‘Amount of Shit Out of Mouth with Big Dumb Foot Stuck in It.’_

“I-” She lets a breath fill her chest, surrendering to the waver in her voice. “I never imagined that somebody could love me the way that you do. That somebody like  _you_ could love me the way that you do.” She glances up, and she’s shit outta luck. Max is already crying.

“You make me feel like I matter,” she sniffs, says, “You make me smile, and laugh,” and finds herself doing both. “You make going to a fucking _grocery store_ fun. You’re my best friend. You’ve seen all of me and have somehow managed not to go running in the opposite direction, screaming.. You  _know_ me. And choose to love me when anybody else wouldn’t think twice about walking out the door. I.. still have no idea why,” her head bows without really meaning to. “And, I mean, I know I can be a pain in the ass sometimes, and I know I can drive you crazy, so if you don’t actually want this, I can-”

“Oh my God, don’t tell me you’re actually trying to talk me  _out_ of it!” The way Max says it is so squeaky, so incredulous, that Chloe has to laugh, finally succumbing to the tears in her eyes as she squeezes her hand, thumb rubbing, hopefully for the last time, over the the blank space in her knuckles.

“So, uh,” Her gaze raises slowly, nervous, to her face, and she makes herself look her in the eye as she asks, hopeful, searching, holding out the ring in question, “Do you want to?”

Chloe’s heart forgets to beat in the mere half-second that it takes Max to start nodding, for her to say, “ _Yes_ ,” a mere shimmer of a word, eyes large and liquid in the low, yellow light. “Of course I want to.”

And immediately, she slumps over in relief, putting her weight on her fist as she says to the floor, “ _Oh, thank God_.”

Even with the fourth loop of the same goddamn  _Wham!_ song in the background, Chloe’s never felt more grateful to be alive. It means she’s able to be here, to witness this, Max beaming down at her, heavenfaced, so incredibly human.

Max reaches down to brush at one of Chloe’s wet cheeks, getting her to look up with a, “Hey,” and a little wiggle of her fingers in front of her face.

“Oh, shit. Yeah.” Chloe sniffs. And then they’re both laughing like losers, sobbing messes as she slips the ring onto her finger, and it’s perfect. She’s perfect.

Chloe loves the little squeal Max makes into her mouth when she picks her up, kisses her, tiny hands bracketing the sides of her face. It’s more crying than kissing at this point, the both of them a little too caught up in everything, but, holy shit, it’s  _amazing_.

Even moreso when they pull apart and Max whispers, soft, a smile against her lips, “I’m gonna marry the hell out of you.”

Then she lets Chloe see the smartass little twitch of her mouth as she stands, says, “And..”

“And?”

“I’m never letting you live this down.”

 

* * *

 

Max is back in there right now, wearing the very same ring that Dad had picked out when he was Chloe’s age. She’s busy putting up with family members and friends and the smallest of small talk, meanwhile, Chloe’s just.. standing out here. Not doing much of anything, really.

Somewhere in between the block of bride emojis (ugh) that Mom had sent her this morning, and Ryan’s teary-eyed toast tonight, it hit her that this is the real thing. They’ve made it. They’re having a  _wedding_ tomorrow.

And she’s totally terrified of fucking it up.

Chloe had known what she wanted. By some sort of miracle, she went and got it. But, now that she’s gone and gotten it, she doesn’t really know _what_ to do- she never expected to get this far.

Shouldn’t something have gone wrong by now? It always has before, so why would this time be any different? Up until recently, she’s spent her life waiting for the inevitable exodus of everything good she’s ever had, but.. it’s so hard to feel that way when Chloe remembers the stupid little thrill she got in her stomach as she watched the ring make a home on Max’s finger. She’d catch a glimpse of it while she was reading, or fixing her hair, or taking a photo. More often than not, there was no looming fear of when she was going to take it off.

Could it really be possible that the universe is allowing them a fighting chance?

She’s so out of it that she doesn’t even hear the door close, nor the familiar pair of feet crossing the porch from behind. She only starts when the glass in her hand gets put down for her, when tiny arms hoop around her neck, when she gets kissed, brief, but warm, honeyed.

“Hi.”

Chloe keeps her eyes still, trained over the curve of Max’s shoulder, but still follows her lead, palms placing themselves on either side of her waist. “Hey.”

“You disappeared for a minute, there,” Max is using her concerned voice, hand cupping Chloe’s cheek so she’ll look down, trying to catch her gaze. “You okay?”

She nods. “I’m fine.”

“Nervous?”

“No.” She says nervously.

“Huh,” Max leans back, her weight swaying from one foot to the other as she backs up, just slightly, to get a clearer view of her face. “I could swear that you look a little nervous.”

She’s got that shitty little smile of hers on. It’s the one that means she knows she’s right, the one that can either calm Chloe’s nerves or get under her skin completely.

“Am not.”

“Am  _too_ ,” Max grins, goofy, but then her demeanor shifts into something more serious, arms coming down so she can smooth out Chloe’s collar. “Come on, what is it?”

“I just don’t wanna fuck it up,” She admits, squeezing her eyes shut, taking a second, mulling it over. Steeling herself, before going on. “Like.. do anything stupid.”

Like make Max realize that this isn’t what she wants. Like get Max to stand at the altar only to make her say,  _‘Nah, I’m good.’_

“Now, how would you do that?” There’s a look of doubt on her face, coming to show even in her voice.

“Uh,” Chloe says dryly. “ _Fuck-up_ is kind of my default setting, if you hadn’t noticed.”

It takes a second of silence for Chloe to look back down again, this time stirring up a mild regret in her stomach. There’s a soft dimple between the flat of Max’s eyebrows. Her mouth is pressed into a tight line. She’s blinking slowly, looking at Chloe like she’s crazy, and, hell, maybe she is.

“ _This_ is the only stupid thing you’re doing.” Max sighs, sounding less than thrilled, but then her voice goes softer. Unrelentingly patient. “You know why I agreed to this?”

Chloe winces. “Not really.”

“I agreed to this ‘cause I love you. Stupid,” she says affectionately, arms slackening. “Fuck-ups and all. I mean, Christ, Chloe. You know that. You could burp me your vows and I’d still be as happy as ever.”

That’s probably true. She didn’t seem to mind it when she did it with  _Careless Whisper_ last Valentine’s Day.

And now she just feels like an asshole. Because, yeah, she  _does_ know that. And she  _does_  know it’s stupid, and she  _does_  know Max loves her. Neither of them are going anywhere, but Chloe’s become so comfortable in this pattern, this custom of creating a problem when there is none.

And maybe that’s it. Nothing is wrong, and she just doesn’t know how to deal with it.

“..I  _guess_ -” Chloe lifts her off her feet, briefly, after a moment of thought, and smiles at Max’s resulting squeak. “-you have a point.”

Max ruffles the hair at the back of her neck. It’s impossible to miss the satisfied grin on her face. “You know I do.”

She does. That’s another thing- the woman is always right. Even when Chloe doesn’t want to admit it.

“Whatever. Have I mentioned that I’m really glad you said yes, by the way?”

“If I’ve kept track correctly, I think we’re racking up one or two  _billion_ reminders,” Max beams. “And so am I. So you can chill out, now.”

And then she kisses her again, which is enough to get Chloe to do anything on any normal day, so, fuck if she’s going to chicken out now.

“ _And_. As glad as I am,” Max says, pulling away, palm flat against Chloe’s chest, getting her brows to quirk in question. “I still don’t think it’s very polite to skip out on your own rehearsal dinner.” Her head tilts, she bites her lip, and Chloe gets the hint.

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you,” she lets her go, lips bumping against her temple in the aim of a kiss. “Go. I’ll be there in a sec.”

From there on out it’s mostly just Max’s mom, yipping on about centerpieces and napkin rings and bullshit, bullshit. It’s a half-buzzed Joyce. It’s their little cousins running around and hiding under tablecloths. It’s nothing new. Nothing scary. Nothing she doesn’t know.

The end of the evening comes and everyone filters out, eventually. They turn in for the night. Max draws hearts on the bathroom mirror while Chloe’s in the shower and they brush their teeth side-by-side at the sink and Chloe makes her laugh, which almost makes mouthwash come out of her nose, and it’s okay. She’s okay.

They’re okay.

Late into the night, Chloe dreams of a sky full of stars.

 

* * *

  

For the past fifteen minutes, Mom’s been flitting around the place, eager to find something to worry about. She keeps straightening and re-straightening the lapels of Chloe’s jacket, keeps reaching up to find rogue ruffles of hair to fix.

“You know,” Chloe reaches for both of her wrists, guiding her arms back down to her sides. “I think I’m good, Ma.”

“Hush and let me have this, alright?” She shushes her with a final tug at her sleeves, though her smile is warm, dark lips and eyes crinkling at the corners. “My daughter’s getting  _married_ today.”

“She knows,” Chloe slips her hands into her pockets, rocking back and forth on her feet. “It was kind of  _her_ idea. But if her mother doesn’t stop helicoptering, that’s never actually gonna happen.”

She has a point. For being so freshly divorced, Joyce was pretty damn quick to insert herself into their wedding.

She’s been acting like a complete scatterbrain ever since Chloe asked her if she still had the ring, bugging her day in and day out about how and when and  _where_ she was going to do it, thrilled that she’d managed to turn out a normal(ish) child. Now she gets to do that  _Mom_ thing that she never got to do before.

She doesn’t quite live up to Max’s mother, though, who, Jesus Christ, had insisted on handling everything behind the scenes. She’d made a Big Point to urge Max at every opportunity to let her throw them a Big Wedding, to which some people (Max) (Ryan) might say that Vanessa was trying to live vicariously through her daughter.

“Smart-mouth,” Joyce raises a stern brow. “Dunno how Max puts up with it.”

“Pretty well, actually,”  _Speaking of_.. “..How is she?”

“Oh, honey,” Her face immediately softens, and Chloe feels whatever tension that’s lingering in her chest do the same. “Just beautiful.”

That’s kind of a given. But Chloe can’t keep the smile from spreading on her face anyway as she remembers all the things Max had said to her last night, how she’d felt before. Compared to how she feels now she just wants to laugh because, all things considered, being worried about marrying Max is a pretty fucking great problem to have.

Finally she says, “Well, duh,” pleased and proud. So stupidly giddy, like a girl in love.

“Now,” Joyce brings her head down to kiss her crown. “I love you, gorgeous girl. Go get ‘em.”

 

* * *

 

 

One wedding and piggyback-ride into a hotel room later ( _“If you drop me I’m divorcing you-”_ ), Chloe Price’s entire life has changed.

She learned a lot of things today- how to make it six minutes into a wedding ceremony without crying, how to look across from her and witness a blessing in human form, how to be the only one, ever, that gets to do what she did today. How fate sure is one fickle bitch.

It’s kind of funny what can happen in a few measly seconds. This time, for the better.

“Dude.” Chloe lets her jacket drop onto the armchair. “We’re so fucking married.”

And so fucking tempted to start jumping up and down on the bed. Even if everything in the room looks expensive and..  _breakable_.

Max catches her off guard when she turns around, hands already on Chloe’s cheeks, up on her tiptoes to draw her down into a kiss. It goes on for a little longer than is expected, warm, weighty, starting to move into different territory completely before Max pulls them apart like it’s nothing.

Her eyes are sparkling as she grabs Chloe’s hand, affirms, “We are,” and then she leads her, padding over in bare feet, to the room’s bar.

“Um,” Chloe has to blink through her blush, find her breath in the sudden change of plans. “What’re we doing now?”

Max doesn’t answer, just hums and waves a wine glass in Chloe’s direction.

“Should we?” Immediately, she feels stupid for saying it because, hello, there are  _definitely_ more important things to be worrying about, here-

“Sure, we should,” She picks up a bottle and turns it over to look at the label, glancing up at Chloe with a cool smile on her face. “I’m gonna fill the bottle up with sink water before we leave. Want one?”

Max is still in her dress, knees naked. Her head is tilted in question, hair falling just the right way so that Chloe can see the tattoo behind her ear as she approaches from behind, starting to undo the buttons lined down her back.

“Sure.” she says, drawing a line in between her shoulderblades. “ _Although_ , I’m more in the mood for a short drink of water named Max Caulfield.”

Max groans at the ceiling and turns around to hand her a glass of red, instead, crossing the room to shut the curtains. “That was terrible. You’re terrible.”

“Well, you still married me, so..” She grins over the rim, watching as Max makes her way to sit, cross-legged, on the center of the bed.

She pats the empty space in front of her. “I hope you’re not planning on throwing these bad lines my way all night.”

“I dunno.” Chloe takes a swallow as she sits down. “ _I’m_ just hoping this place is soundproof _._ ”

“Jesus,” Max sighs, though it’s unconvincing when matched with her grin. “Is it too late for me to be having second thoughts?”

“ _Ouch_.”

“Sorry,” she laughs as she lays down on her back, tethering Chloe by the collar to kiss her. “I mean.. it’s cute. You’re cute.”

“ _Just_ cute?” She lifts an eyebrow.

“Nope.”

“Oh?”

“Easy, too.”

Chloe groans and rolls over to set their glasses on the dresser. She doesn’t have to  _say_ it. “Now  _I’m_ starting to have second thoughts.”

She hears Max say something under her breath about how she  _thinks she can fix that_ , making Chloe let out an uncharacteristically girlish giggle as she turns her over, pounces into her lap.

Max kisses her, the tender inside of her wrists grazing the groove of Chloe’s jaw, fingers weaving through her hair, wild and gentle. Chloe can feel her breath, sweet, bottom lip drawn up between her teeth, and lets herself get spoiled. Just this little bit.

And before she knows it she’s back to looking up at her, Max acting completely and totally nonchalant above her as she starts to fiddle with the buttons down Chloe’s front.

She looks her over, eyebrows raised, expectant. A hint of a grin. “So?”

The knot nested in Chloe’s throat starts to unfurl, warm and dense as she watches her, wordless, worthless. Totally at her mercy. There’s a flutter in her throat and red, she’s sure, is visibly rising all the way up from her chest to her cheeks, her ears.

Max is looking down at her, pretty, painterly, hair all brushed out, soft and downy where stray pieces brush blush-hot cheeks. Her makeup has been wiped away, beautiful and bare and blood-rushed, and Chloe’s kind of dumbstruck by it, because, damn, Max really is something else- so much so that she forgets all but one word in the English language:

“Huh?”

The atmosphere breaks for a second as Max laughs, bright and bell-like, cupping Chloe’s face in her hands. “You’re so adorable.”

Then she pats her cheek and rolls off of her, the pleasant pressure of her weight sorely missed. Her back is against the bed, and then there’s a second of silence, just the two of them waiting and sitting there and  _staring_ at each other before Max knocks her in the side with her ankle and grins.

“Get to it!”

 

* * *

 

Chloe wakes with a sleep-smacked hand to the face. Which happens a lot.

Only this time, there’s the cool feel of silver against her forehead, flat and smooth where it sits on Max’s ring finger. Even in the midst of her light bruising, Chloe can’t help but smile.

She pushes herself up on her elbows and looks out the window, sun sitting like a white wound in the clean, cloud-stuffed sky. She rubs at her eyes with the heel of her hand and blinks around the room, spotting a pair of empty wine glasses on the dresser, clothes crumpled on the carpet, a bra flung over the mirror that she vaguely remembers throwing over her shoulder the night before. Max had gone to the trouble of wearing matching underwear, which was adorable, and kind of funny, because she can barely match her socks any other day.

Then she looks to her right and finds her, naked, sound asleep on her stomach. Wearing the world like angel wings.

Falling in love with Max hadn’t been something she’d stumbled into, or something she’d been swept up in with no control. It wasn’t much of a conscious choice or discussion, either, because instead, she just was.  _Is_. Allows herself to be. It’s a feeling that had made a home, warm and hearty in her chest, a perfectly human sort of thrill in realizing,  _‘It’s you.’_

It's the same sort of sensation as going halfway through the day and realizing how nice it is outside, or like staying up late and looking through the curtains for it to be morning already. Like coming home when you know you have the next day off. Accidentally letting a firefly into your house. Seeing an old friend.

It may not feel like something out of a movie, but God, does it feel fucking good.

Because hell must’ve finally frozen over. Because Chloe just married Max yesterday. Because Chloe had proposed to her once long-lost best friend and once long-lost best friend said  _yes_.

To think that she’d have her as a wife. To think that she’d have a  _wife_ at all.

A wife.

_Her_ wife.

Her wife starts to stir in the pucker of blankets, cotton white where it hits her hips, face rubbing into the pillow. Chloe reaches over to scritch under her chin, skin creased from where the sheets pressed in during the night, and receives a delicate grunt in response. Her brow is still furrowed in half-sleep.

Chloe will have her days where she’ll doubt Max’s affections. She always does. She’ll back herself into a corner, alone with only loud, love-deafening thoughts, finding herself unable to cling onto Max’s soft edges with her hard, dirty hands- but then Max will be there, always, to go and do that thing she always does, soft and perfect and convincing. Pulling Chloe right back in when she’s ready. And that’s okay.

Max will have her days where she’s deathly afraid that one of them will disappear. She always does. She’ll have to hold Chloe’s hand while she puts away the dishes or while she brushes her teeth or while she makes dinner because she’s so paranoid of what might happen if she doesn’t keep herself tied to her, and that’s okay.

Other times shit’ll just happen. They’ll have fights. There’ll be night terrors and relapses and problems with paying bills.

But there’ll be movie nights, and good sex, and days where Chloe will catch a glimpse of Max’s wedding dress chilling in the back of the closet. She’ll have a ring to put on at the beginning of every day. She’ll quit smoking. Cigarettes.

Eventually.

Max will groan at Chloe for drinking the milk out of the carton. At Christmas time the two of them will be drunk, picking out wrapping papers on their bedroom floor. Max will keep stashing her fucking fabric grocery bags under the sink and she’ll keep forgetting to bring them with her.  _Every_ time.

People at work will ask Chloe about her wife. They’ll get a real-life house and snicker about their realtor’s last name- Buttz- like they’re ten years old. They’ll leave each other notes in the mornings and they’ll cheat when they play rock-paper-scissors to see who has to take out the trash.

Relief is an unfamiliar, though welcome, feeling. It never really stops coming to her, in sprinkles or in tidal waves, when she wakes up to a miracle in her bed every day. She loves Max and her photos and the space between her fingers and the beautiful things she makes her feel in the mornings. She loves that she stayed alive. She loves that Max makes her want to stay alive. She loves that Max wants her. All of her.

This is what she did it for.

Chloe will be sitting, grading papers on the couch. She’ll glance over and Max will be next to her, perched over, painting her toes as the TV plays in the background, and a simple thought will come to mind:

_“Thank you.”_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :^) bloop.
> 
> sorry fr the delay again! still busy w/irl stuff + i had an entire chapter written for this before i decided that it didn't fit, sooo i had to start it over. also this is p much 3x as long as the previous chapters i've published lmfao. i've also been working on some other pricefield/lis fics i'm hoping to post soon so yay!! :*
> 
> ALSO VengeSim wrote the sweetest story inspired by this fic! you can find it [over here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11354208), so please check it out! this amazing [fan art](https://vengesim.tumblr.com/post/166879427710/an-appreciation-comic-for-the-life-is-strange%0A) too!! they're super talented and i'm insanely honored that something i wrote was able to inspire somebody :')
> 
> i may revisit this in the future to make it into a series w/little one shots if i have any ideas 'cause i mean. i can never get enough domestic pricefield :-) we'll see!
> 
> comments/kudos/etc are all welcome!whether you left feedback on this or have just been silently following along, thank you <3 :-) i hope this fic was able to make you smile!!
> 
> also, thanks 2 the irl lesbians who got engaged in the cheese aisle for indirectly blessing me w/this proposal idea.
> 
> my tumblr is @rachelambr if you'd like to keep up w/me in between fics!!! smooches

**Author's Note:**

> so........I've decided to forget that my other multi-chapter ever existed because it was bumming me out BUT there were still some lil scenes i had planned fr it that i wanted to write and!! these r it. there's not rlly a coherent plot but there is a vague sort of linear....ness to it i guess. this should hopefully be updated more regularly btw! comments are more than welcome + my tumblr is @rachelambr !
> 
> thank u fr reading n stuff!! muah


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